Mussa Hattar| Agence France Presse
AMMAN: Every morning Salama Ali sets up shop in the old market of Jordan’s capital Amman, hoping to scratch out a living in one of the Arab world’s most expensive cities. The mother of five in her 40s stakes out a space on the sidewalk and arranges her eggs and homemade cheese amid the city’s dust, traffic and early morning heat.

“Life has become very, very difficult,” Salama told AFP as she put the final touches on her display.

Residents in the capital are finding it increasingly hard to make ends meet in a city ranked the Arab world’s most expensive in terms of cost of living, according to a recent report by The Economist Intelligence Unit.

It takes about two hours by bus from her home in Madaba to reach Amman, where a week of anti-austerity protests by citizens suffering from high unemployment and repeated price hikes pushed Prime Minister Hani Mulki to resign Monday.

Salama says she wakes before dawn each morning to milk her sheep, make cheese and yoghurt, collect fresh eggs and prepare for the market. “The cost of living is high. Each year is harder than the one before it ... everything is getting worse,” she said.

She and her husband struggle to keep their business going and their children fed.

According to official estimates, 18.5 percent of Jordan’s population is unemployed, while 20 percent are on the brink of poverty.

Salama’s neighbor on the stretch of sidewalk, Umm Qusay, has nine children to provide for.